Adobe Acrobat is a family of application software by Adobe Systems whose applications use Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) as their native file format. Some software in the family is commercial, and some free of charge. Adobe Reader (formerly Acrobat Reader) is available as a no-charge download from Adobe's web site, and allows the viewing and printing of PDF files.
Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader support redlining by letting users mark regions of a drawing with clouds, text notes, callouts, text notes, stamps, lines, polygons, besides freehand (pencil) annotations. Adobe Reader's markup functionality is operational when documents have their rights/permissions enabled to permit annotation (e.g., via publishing options in Acrobat or LiveCycle Reader Extensions Server).
The PDF document is used in a variety of industries including but not limited to: field users frequently use design drawings (preferably printed from a PDF) to manage day to day work on a work site to ensure construction is executed as designed, or to regularly inspect in-service facilities (e.g. a bridge or a dam or a flood control levee), or to track maintenance and repair work (e.g. replacing a valve or repairing a pump in a process plant). Sometimes photographic records are made (e.g. a stress crack is noticed and then monitored for significance and change). Many of these markups need to be stored or archived as formal records or immediately shared in collaborative review sessions. Currently, in the industry, notes taken must be manually input into a PDF document resulting in possibility of error, a time delay, and/or the destruction/loss of the document.
The PDF document is routinely the file format used in collaborative review. Review sessions are frequently a group activity and the discussions include the expertise of multiple people particularly when addressing and solving design options or problems. Collaborative reviews are not well supported by current technology. Current technology provides participants with printed paper for taking notes, or sometimes one person is attempting to track the discussions and update a master copy. Even when using large computer displays or projections, the design review software is almost invariably single user driven—the software, the mouse and keyboards are all meant to be used by a single user and are not designed to accommodate multiple participants. Instrumented boards such as Smartboards provide an enhanced, but still limited solution. These boards are not portable, and therefore tie users to specific instrumented rooms. Participants wishing to add markups need to stand up and take turns writing on these boards. Paper on the other hand continues to be the material of choice for collaboration. Paper is high-definition and high-contrast. It can be printed cheaply on a variety of sizes, including large formats that make it easy for a group to see and annotate, or on smaller sheets that can be passed around and manipulated for effect. Often, drawings are posted on the walls of a design “war room” for inspection and annotation.
Current systems and methods allow for manual editing of a document and then require a user to interpret and manually enter the changes into a master document resulting in a time delay and errors.